


The Accidental Nudist

by htbthomas



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Car Accidents, Father-Son Relationship, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Alternating, Parallel Stories, Reveal, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-01 13:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2774939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A car accident in the present triggers the memory of a fateful car accident in the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Accidental Nudist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isabeau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabeau/gifts).



> Based on canon through Forever 1.11, "Skinny Dipper."
> 
> Thanks to my betas, LadySilver and mollivanders.

Abe claps his hands together and rubs them briskly. “It takes longer and longer for this old girl to warm up. One day she’s gonna give up the ghost for good.” In answer, the car coughs and sputters. Abe whacks the dashboard and the rumble settles. “I should just sell her.”

Henry smiles fondly. Abe has been complaining about the car for years now, but Henry knows Abe would sooner sell his priceless Louis XIV buffet in the shop than sell this car. Abe has never said so out loud, but Henry suspects that it reminds him of when he was at the top of his game—able to sweet talk any woman into his bed… or out of her grandmother’s heirloom china. He’s still no slouch, but those glory years are long over.

Henry puts those thoughts away—he doesn’t like to be reminded of Abe’s increasing age. He has buried too many loved ones in his unnaturally long life—and the pain of loss never gets any easier.

The heater starts to warm up—finally—and Henry can peel off his leather gloves. “There she goes, Abe. She’s got life in her yet.”

Abe grins, stroking the dashboard. “Yes, she does.”

Henry waits for Abe to pull out from the curb, but he just taps his fingers in a syncopated rhythm on the steering wheel to some song only he can hear. Henry frowns. “Are we waiting for someone?”

Abe turns his head toward him, then silently looks Henry up and down. “As a matter of fact, we are.”

“Whom?”

Abe heaves a long suffering sigh. “You’d think someone with such a good memory would be unable to forget to put on a seatbelt, but somehow…”

Henry nods in chagrined comprehension. “Of course, sorry.” He pulls the seat belt over himself and clicks it into place. “There.”

“Better.” Abe turns on his headlights, puts on the turn signal and gently pulls onto the street. “I wouldn’t want you to have another one of your ‘accidental nudist’ episodes again.”

Henry shivers, and not just at the dark outside. “Nor do I.” 

Henry shifts into the seat to get more comfortable, as it’s some distance to the auction. Abe would normally attend these events alone, but Henry is loathe to let him out of his sight for long, especially at night. Not after his last run-in with Adam. 

They’re halfway across town when Abe suddenly pipes up, “You know… I’m even more surprised you would ever forget your seatbelt considering what happened in the old Dodge Dart Seneca.”

“Oh, don’t remind me.” Henry wipes a hand across his face. “That car was brand new.”

“And built like a tank.”

“I remember that the advertisements called it an ‘economy car.’”

Abe makes a turn down toward the warehouse district. “How times have changed—” His words cut off as his wheels catch a patch of black ice. With a shout of alarm, Abe struggles to correct the car now wildly spinning out of control.

“Abe! The telephone pole—!”

They are the last words he can get out before the car slams into the pole and everything goes black.

* * *

In the backseat, Abe wakes from his hormone-fueled daydreams of gorgeous Susan Barker with a jolt. The car is swerving wildly and then there is a sickening crunch. He tumbles to the floorboards, his elbow twisting painfully as he lands on it. Groaning, he levers himself carefully up, “What just _happened_?”

There’s no answer, and his heart starts to pound, a second before he sees the windshield completely broken out on the passenger side. Even more alarming is the tree branch sticking through the windshield on the driver’s side. 

“Oh my god, Mom! Dad!”

His mother is unconscious, slumped against the steering wheel. The branch is just inches from her forehead. He scrambles over the seat to get a closer look. No blood on the branch that he can see, no puncture wounds on her, thank god.

He shakes her gently. “Mom? Mom, are you okay?” She rolls a little to the side and he grabs her around the shoulders. There’s blood on her temples, trickling down from where she must have hit her head on the steering wheel. Sweeping the broken glass off the vinyl seat with his arm, he lays her gently on her side, then he checks her pulse and breathing. Her breathing is weak and her pulse is hard to find, but it’s there—she’s still alive. He lets out a sob of relief. Now what would Dad do in this situ—

It suddenly hits him like a ton of bricks. “Dad!” He was right there, in the passenger seat, when Abe had gone to sleep. Was he thrown from the car? He scrabbles at the door handle for a few useless moments before it finally gives. Abe goes tumbling to the ground.

“Dad!” Abe calls out again, searching desperately in the dim light of the single head lamp that is still working. “Dad!” He sees something under another tree, maybe it’s a body, maybe a pile of litter thrown out carelessly by other vacationers, but he stumbles over to it.

It _is_ Dad. He’s covered in blood, his body twisted at an unnatural angle. “Dad!” he sobs, kneeling at his side. He checks the same things, the breathing, the pulse, and both are even weaker than Mom’s. He doesn’t know what to do—why didn’t he listen when Dad talked about work? Maybe he could have picked up something that would help!

Suddenly Dad coughs weakly, and takes in a labored breath. “Abraham…” he says, his voice raspy. “How… is your mother…?”

“Alive,” Abe answers through his tears. “But you—?”

Dad closes his eyes in relief. Then in a barely-audible whisper, he says, “I’m so sorry, son, I should have t…” His body goes still.

Abe cries out in panic, touching his fingers to his dad’s neck over and over again, as if just the very next attempt will magically produce the pulse he can’t find. His hand falls to his side and he sobs in earnest. “Dad… Dad.”

And then, between one racking cry and the next—the body is gone.

* * *

Henry’s eyes flutter open. His rib cage hurts, his head is pounding, his knees and legs ache from striking the glovebox, but nothing feels broken. He’ll probably have a terrible bruise on his chest from the seat belt, and there might be a touch of whiplash…

He pauses in mentally listing his injuries with a start. Abraham!

Abe is collapsed against the mostly deflated airbag on the steering wheel. His eyes are closed, but Henry can see his breath coming out in wisps from his nose in the cold air that has already seeped in since the accident. 

“Abe? Abraham!” Henry shakes him softly, but there’s no response. A sharp stab of worry hits Henry in the stomach. How bad is he? Did the impact simply knock Abe out or is it something much worse? It is difficult to tell how badly he might be injured in the dark, so Henry flips on the dome light. Nothing. The crash must have knocked out the car’s electrical systems. Henry digs in his suit jacket for a pen light, which luckily did not tumble from his pocket during the crash.

He shines the light over Abe’s face and body, at the skin uncovered by clothing. There is a small laceration on his hand, maybe from a pen flying from the stash of random items Abe keeps beneath the radio. Henry can’t see any other visible injuries, and he doesn’t have his medical bag with him. He must get Abe to a hospital for a full examination, and quickly. Where is Abe’s mobile phone?

Henry digs in the stash and comes up empty, then he checks the pocket of Abe’s jacket closest to him. Not there either. He gently lifts Abe away from the steering wheel, to avoid exacerbating any unseen injuries, and reaches across to lower the seat back. Through all this movement, Abe doesn’t stir at all. Henry’s worry increases ten fold. 

He finally finds the mobile phone by feel—in Abe’s back trouser pocket. Levering himself up over the top of Abe’s body, he pries it out, just to have it slip from his fingers. He hears the phone clack against the driver’s side door, wedging itself between the door and the seat. It’s just far enough down that he can’t reach it in his position, not without climbing over Abe’s prone and possibly critically damaged body. 

Henry pulls at the passenger door handle. It doesn’t budge. The frame must have been damaged in the head-on collision. After some awkward twisting despite aching legs and a neck which most definitely has some soft tissue damage, he tries each of the rear doors from the back seat. Both of them are stuck tight. His hands start to shake with panic. This can’t be the end, not here, not now. He’s not ready.

Henry forces calm with a slow, deep breath. He just has to keep the panic from overtaking him. He is a trained medical professional, many times over. He can do this, he must do this, to save the person he cares for most in the world.

He lifts himself across Abe again, ignoring the strained muscles that are starting to protest. Perhaps the driver’s side door isn’t damaged, perhaps he can open it just enough to get a better angle on the phone. He pulls the handle gently, hoping against hope—

—and the door opens... just enough for the phone to clatter to the icy pavement with a cracking impact. Henry winces, then peers out. What he sees makes him suck air between his teeth in dismay. The phone’s screen is shattered.

“Bloody hell.”

* * *

Abe sits there in the grass for a full minute, in complete shock. His brain cannot process what he has just seen. His dad was there and now he is not. He’s not five, he’s fifteen—he knows that people don’t get instantaneously transported to heaven upon death. Is he dreaming? Is _he_ the one who died in the accident?

He shakes his head violently, his eyes shut tight. He must be dreaming. When he slowly opens them, he’s still kneeling in the grass, it’s still dark, and there’s still no body. He slowly turns toward where the car was…

It is still there. Steaming under the branches of the tree that still spear through the windshield— Mom!

Abe leaps to his feet and sprints to the car. She is still there, peaceful on the seat. He places a hand on her cheek to make sure she’s not an illusion. She’s warm, and breathing without effort. He relaxes, but only slightly. The fact that she hasn’t woken up makes his guts clench. But when she wakes up—when, it has to be _when_ —how will he explain what happened to Dad?

He has to find help, somehow. There hasn’t been a single car on the road since the accident, even though the lake is a pretty popular place this time of year. Aren’t there tourist cabins around here somewhere? They stayed in one the summer he was eight. Maybe he could walk to one of them—and hope they have a telephone. His arm still hurts, but it doesn’t feel broken or sprained. And he’s the only one who isn’t unconscious. Or hasn’t vanished into thin air.

He takes a few steps and stops. Should he leave his mother all alone and hurt? Maybe it would be best to wait beside the car and hope another vehicle comes along. He starts to head back. Then he stops again. What if no one comes by all night? Can he risk it? His mother might be bleeding internally, and—

There’s a rustling from the edge of the trees, and he whips his head around in panic. What is it? A deer? A bear?

Whatever it is calls out to him. “Abe!”

Abe’s heart starts to beat even faster. Who could be calling him? Out here, in the middle of nowhere?

The person—is it a person?—takes a step toward him, then another. The undergrowth crackles with each step. The person calls out again. “Abraham!”

Is that… his dad’s voice? He takes a few halting steps toward the person, whose face and body is just becoming visible—all white and ghostly in the moonlight. It _is_ his dad! His dad’s ghost!

Suddenly all the stress and panic and pain overwhelm him—and he faints dead away.

* * *

Henry ponders his options for a moment. He can try to crawl out over the top of Abe, and get out of the car to see if the phone is still operable. He can try kicking out the windshield or one of the doors with his aching legs. The effort would likely break his ankle before the glass.

For another moment, Henry tries to determine how close they are to the Hudson River. He could commit emergency suicide and maybe get to a phone somewhere to call an ambulance—provided the police don’t happen upon him again. But then he’d be leaving Abe alone for too long, and wasting precious time. What if Abe has had a stroke? Or lapsed into a coma? Every minute, nay, every second counts here.

“The windshield it is, then.” The glass is already cracked from the impact, perhaps if he strikes it just… there… it will give more easily. He braces himself with his hands and then takes a deep breath. “For Abraham.” With a tremendous heave, Henry kicks his legs through the glass. 

Or he tries to. The glass indeed shatters, but just as he suspected would happen, there’s a crunch, his right ankle gives. Henry cries out in pain and then grits his teeth as he pulls himself back into a seated position. He has had 200 years to get used to excruciating pain, and this is not the first broken ankle he has suffered. Using his jacket-covered elbows, he creates a hole large enough to crawl out of. Then he ignores the pain the best he can to get outside.

Henry slides off the hood onto his one good ankle, and hops around to retrieve the phone. Lifting it, he presses the button to turn on the screen. Perhaps only the glass has been damaged…it remains black.

He almost fumbles the phone when a voice calls to him only yards away. “Henry? Henry!”

* * *

Abe wakes up in the back seat, an afghan covering him. It’s still dark outside, and for a confusing minute, he thinks that maybe he _did_ dream the whole thing, that maybe they’ve stopped at a rest area, or a filling station. But just trying to prop himself up on an elbow brings excruciating pain. Dad—or the ghost of Dad—is in the front seat, cleaning Mom’s wounds with a cloth and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Would a ghost be able to do that?

“Oh, Abraham, you’re awake,” Dad says, though he doesn’t stop treating Mom. He’s dressed again, in a blue sweater and slacks. Was he wearing that before? 

Abe sits up and frowns, concentrating on cataloging every detail he can remember. He’s always been good at noticing specifics—his baseball card collection is the envy of the neighborhood. Dad doesn’t have any signs of injury from before, no blood, and… “Your hair. It’s—”

“No longer grey. Correct.” Dad screws the cap back onto the bottle. “Point of fact, I have been coloring it for a decade now.”

Abe frowns harder, noticing that Dad’s hair is slightly damp, curling around his temples. “But hair color doesn’t just wash out…” Then he looks from Mom’s face to Dad’s—and it hits him. She looks much older than Dad, the fine lines on her forehead and around her eyes cannot be hidden with makeup, and the rubbing alcohol has washed most of that away anyway. Dad, on the other hand, has a full head of brown hair, his eyes are clear, his skin rosy.

“Also correct.” Dad places his stethoscope on Mom’s chest and listens with concentration. “I think she is going to be all right. Just a mild concussion, some bruising, but no puncture wounds or broken bones, thankfully. She should be waking up soon.” He removes the stethoscope from his ears.

Abe is suddenly flooded with relief. But the relief doesn’t wash away his extreme confusion. “Just what the hell is going on, Dad?”

“Abraham!” Dad chides, “Language!” But his stern expression fades quickly. “But perhaps, after tonight, you have earned the privilege.”

Abe wants to swear far more colorfully, but he can see that Dad is working up to something. He waits.

“Son…” Dad says after swallowing. “There is something you must know. Something you probably already suspect. Your mother and I intended to tell you upon your eighteenth birthday, but it seems fate has intervened.”

Abe continues to wait. He can tell that whatever Dad’s about to say is extremely difficult for him. As if he fears that everything is about to change forever. 

“I was born in 1779. My first death—one of many—was in 1814, aboard a slaving ship. Every time I die, I disappear from where I died and reappear—naked—in water.” He holds Abe’s eyes, as serious as a stone. “I am… immortal.”

“Immortal.” Abe lets that sink in for a moment. “Like… Dracula?”

Dad’s lips twitch into a small smile. “Not like Dracula. I don’t need to consume blood to stay alive—thank goodness. In fact, I’ve spent the past nearly 150 years trying to find out why I have been cursed.”

“Wow.” He had been sure that the biggest secret he would ever learn in his lifetime was the fact he had been adopted—his parents had waited for his Bar Mitzvah to tell him that one. But this? This was mind-blowing.

“Now that you know, it is very important that you tell no one, Abraham. The secret stays within this family.”

Abe nods, the weight of it settling on him. Even if he did tell someone, who would believe him? Hell, if he hadn’t seen it for himself, he would have thought his parents were playing a prank. Even though Dad almost never cracked a joke, let alone played a prank.

There’s a moan from the front seat, Mom stirring at last. “Henry?” she calls out weakly. “Abraham?”

“We’re here, Mom,” Abe says, scooting forward. “We’re safe.”

“The deer…” Mom says, worry lines deepening in her forehead. “Did I hit it?”

In all the confusion and chaos, Abe had never thought to ask what happened. Dad replies for him, stroking her hair back from her face. “No, my dearest Abigail. But there is a tree that will never be the same.” He smiles, tears pricking his eyes.

“This car will never be the same, either,” Abe puts in.

Mom pushes herself up to a sitting position, groaning with the effort. She looks at the broken out windshield, blood staining the jagged edges, then glances back at Dad’s uninjured form with alarm. 

Dad nods knowingly, Abe joins him.

Then Mom reaches up to capture a strand of Dad’s curly hair between her fingers. “Oh well. I always liked it best brown, anyway.”

* * *

Henry steadies himself against the hood and squints into the darkness. Jo materializes in front of him, jogging up to the car with a worried expression. “Henry? Are you all right? I tried to call Abe’s phone but there was no answer…”

Henry shows Jo the shattered phone by way of explanation. “You can’t know how glad I am to see you, Detective Martinez, we—” Then he stops mid-sentence. “Wait—how did you know where we were?”

“How?” She frowns with confusion, pulling her phone from her pocket. “I got a text saying you’d been in an accident, but not where… when you didn’t respond, I had the guys at the precinct ping Abe’s GPS.”

“Did you?” He _had_ been knocked unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time. Perhaps Abe sent a text before passing out? “Abe must have sent it before he…” Henry gestures with his chin toward Abe, still unconscious in the front seat.

Jo looks through the window. “Oh my god! Is he…?”

“He’s fine. Alive, anyway. I will need to get him to hospital to know more.” He shifts and winces when his ankle twinges painfully.

“Looks like you need the hospital, too, Henry!” As she speaks, Henry can hear sirens approaching. “I went ahead and called 911, just in case.” She looks again at the text on her phone. “I wonder why Abe texted me instead of calling 911 himself?”

Henry looks back at his son, a pang of remorse layering itself over the worry. “Perhaps there wasn’t time?” Or maybe Abe worried this was 1960 all over again. So Abe contacted the only person he thought Henry could trust if the worst came to pass. 

Jo shrugs and shakes her head, her eyes filled with compassion for a man she only knows as Henry’s roommate.

And maybe she is the only person Henry can trust beyond Abe, though he is glad that test is still in the future. “I am glad he contacted you, Jo, nonetheless.”

* * *

A couple weeks later, Abe sits with Dad in a parking lot. “So, you really just come back looking exactly like you did in 1814?”

“Yes.”

“All healed except that gunshot wound on your chest.”

“Yes.”

“So nothing I could do would hurt you in any way. Not really.”

“No, Abraham.” Dad puts his hand on Abe’s shoulder. “I promise you that I will live until you have reached a ripe old age.”

Abe hadn’t thought of that before. How many people has Dad loved and outlived? “Huh. What will we tell people then? That I’m your grandpa?”

Dad chuckles. though the light doesn’t fully reach his eyes. “We’ll think of something. Now place your hands at ten and two. Then slowly—slowly—press down on the accelerator.”

The car rabbits forward and Abe lets out a whoop of delight.

* * *

Outside the hospital, Henry pulls himself up from the wheelchair and takes the crutches that Abe hands him. “You sure you’re going to be able to use those things, Henry?”

Henry scoffs. “I’ve used crutches before, Abe.”

“Oh, really?” Abe glances about the entrance to make sure no one is close enough to hear. “I thought you just used your own special panacea whenever things got too uncomfortable.” 

Henry shakes his head. “I would never do such a thing!” he protests. Then he gives Abe a sly grin. “Not after Detective Martinez saw my broken ankle.”

As if summoned by her name, Jo drives up in her car. Rolling down her window, she asks, “You two seem in good spirits. You ready to go home?”

“Absolutely,” Henry says, making his way around the front of the car to open the passenger door.

“Oh, no.” Abe catches the door frame with one hand. “I call shotgun. I’m starting to think that you riding in the front seat is cursed.” Henry waves Abe into his place with a grand bowing gesture, or the best one he can manage on crutches.

“Cursed?” Jo asks, one eyebrow raised, once Henry is settled in the back.

“Private joke,” Henry explains, and they head for the antiques shop.


End file.
